KIEV (Sputnik) — Kiev authorities are not currently considering the introduction of a visa regime with Russia, but do not rule out such a possibility in the future, a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman said Saturday.
"We are not considering this possibility for the near future, but never say never," Yevhen Perebiynis said in an interview with Hromadske TV channel.
Under a bilateral agreement signed in 2007, Russians could use a national identity document to enter Ukraine. On Tuesday, the Ukrainian government said that Russian citizens would require passports to enter Ukraine starting March 1, 2015.
The spokesman explained that national identity documents, such as the internal passport, “do not allow controlling how many people arrive to the territory of Ukraine”, creating “chaos.”
Passports, on the other hand, would enable immigration services to keep track and ban those who violate immigration laws from entering the country again, Perebiynis said, noting that Russia requested a consultation on revising travel rules with Ukraine back in 2013.
